Some people will take whatever opportunity they can to insult others and get offended over nothing. In some cases, the name of a simple plant can cause them to throw a fit and show their true colors and bigotry.
Redditor u/Distinct_Safety5762 regaled the internet with a story about their recent encounter with an extremely rude and homophobic baby boomer. The ‘Karen’ got mad after finding out a flower is actually called ‘gayfeather.’ Scroll down for the full story and to read how the internet reacted to the bizarre hateful encounter.
Bored Panda has reached out to the author of the story for further comment via Reddit, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from them.
Liatris spicata is known by many different names, including dense blazing star, prairie feather, and gayfeather
Image credits: Distinct_Safety5762
A retail shopper shared how an older woman went on a massive homophobic rant after finding out the name of the flower
Image credits: varyapigu (Not the actual photo)
Image credits: Distinct_Safety5762
Image credits: USFWS Mountain-Prairie (Not the actual photo)
The plant is extremely widely known and can now be found in many a garden around the world
The flower that u/Distinct_Safety5762 is referring to is Liatris spicata. It’s a herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, and is also known as the dense blazing star, prairie feather, gayfeather, and button snakewort. It’s known by other names, too, including Liatris callilepis, button snakeroot, Kansas gayfeather, and spike gayfeather.
It’s native to the eastern part of Northern America and grows in moist prairies and sedge meadows. However, now, it’s a garden flower grown in many countries around the globe.
Gayfeather has tall spikes of purple flowers that look similar to feathers or bottle brushes. The flower is great for attracting pollinators and friendly insects, from a wide range of butterflies to bumblebees and bees. It also attracts birds like hummingbirds.
Traditionally, the plant, most often its root, was used for various medicinal purposes. These days, gayfeather can be used to treat a sore throat by gargling an infusion of it. The flower also works as a herbal insect repellent, and can be found in potpourri.
It sounds utterly ridiculous that somebody would get upset over the name of a plant having the word ‘gay’ in it. However, that’s the reality of the world we live in.
Some folks make mountains out of molehills and can’t wait to find a reason to get offended. Their way to make sense of the world is to look through the lens of conspiracies. They politicize what’s not political because they desperately want the world to fit their perspective.
But even setting all of this aside, it is beyond rude to go on a rant like this in public. Insulting a whole group of people over a flower is not how you make your local community or society as a whole better. Hate erodes the social fabric.
Cultural norms, not just hate on an individual level, lead to anti-LGBTQ+ attitudes
The Hill reports that, according to the FBI, anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes rose by 19% from 2021 to 2022 in the United States. The Bureau received 11.6k hate crime incident reports in 2022, overall, the majority of which targeted Black people.
In 2022, 622 anti-LGBTQ hate crimes were reported while anti-transgender hate crimes reached 338 incidents.
According to forensic psychologist Karen Franklin on PBS, the roots of anti-gay violence in the United States aren’t as clear-cut as one might think. These attitudes don’t just spring from hatred or repressed homosexuality, according to her. They have more to do with cultural norms than individual hatred.
These attitudes arise from hierarchical gender norms, peer dynamics, and economic and social disempowerment, as well as young people seeking thrills.
“In a nation that glorifies violence and abhors sexual diversity, a minority perceived to violate gender norms functions as an ideal dramatic prop for young men to use in demonstrating their masculinity, garnering social approval, and alleviating boredom,” Franklin writes.
“This becomes more true as heterosexuality increasingly becomes a primary measure of masculinity and as gay men and lesbians become increasingly visible in the media and popular culture. Furthermore, for members of economically and socially marginalized groups, gay men in particular are ideal targets because of their symbolic identification with upper-class privilege.”
Here’s what some internet users had to say after reading the viral story
The author later shared a few more thoughts about the incident
The post Karen Hears A Flower Is Called “Gayfeather”, Throws A Homophobic Fit first appeared on Bored Panda.
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